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Preparation for Creating a Data Driven Subscription

Before
we begin the setup of a Data-Driven Subscription in a report, we need to
ensure that the following conditions are in place. They are likely to be
easily accommodated for our ends, assuming that settings have not been altered
in the sample reports / environment. Keep in mind the realities of bringing
these items into existence in a large organization and / or and environment
where we may not have the privileges, access, or overall authority to institute
them quite so easily, and plan in advance.

We must have access to / permission
to view the report that we wish to establish as subscribed;

We must have capability
within the context of our role assignment to create subscriptions;

The report must either require no
credentials to run, or have the necessary credentials stored within
its structure;

The report server must be
configured to use the appropriate extensions, depending upon the way wish
to deliver the report (this will not be an issue here, as we will be using one
of the two "out of the box" options);

NOTE: We will cover these topics from
numerous perspectives as we progress in the series. For purposes of this
article, we will create the subscriber database in the following section.

Preparation
- Create File Shares and a Subscriber Data Source

Let's create a source for
the subscriberinformation that we will need to access as a step
in the general setup later. We will create a small database with a table that
contains data values that the report server will retrieve at scheduled runtimes,
when the subscription information is processed. In the real world, this
source will likely already exist, and, in any event, will likely be far larger,
as most of us can imagine. In addition to creating a subscriber data
source to allow us to successfully complete the steps of creating a Data-Driven
Subscription, we will also need to have file shares in place, whose qualified
names we will insert into the table we create in the next section.

Create
the File Shares to Which Report Files Will Be Delivered

1.
Right-click
the Start button on the PC.

2.
Select Explore
from the context menu that appears, as shown in Illustration 1.

Illustration 1:
Select Explore ...

Windows
Explorer appears.

3.
Navigate to
the location to which you wish to install the folders (I chose the "D:"
drive on my PC), to which the subscribed report files in our practice example
will be delivered.

4.
Create a
folder with the following name:

RS_SubscriberShares

5.
Create folders
within the new RS_SubscriberShares folder, with the following names:

AdamsV
DamascusB
DhueL
PearsonW3

These
folders will represent file shares for a group of employees within the
hypothetical organization in our practice example. Obviously, the real-life
location of such file shares would be on the network somewhere, with the
appropriate access rights assigned to the associated users. Alternatively, we
might just as easily have created departmental, or other, shares for groups
of users, and so forth, depending upon the needs and resources of the
organization.

The
newly created file shares appear similar to those depicted in Illustration
2:

Illustration 2: The File
Shares ...

6.
Close Windows
Explorer.

Having created the file
shares to which we will direct the delivery of the report files, and which we
will specify within the subscription settings, we are ready to take the steps
to create a database and table to contain the information that is
required to establish our Data-Driven Subscription.

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